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Years before allegations of price gouging and improper billing dogged Wilkes-Barre's towing contractor, several red flags emerged from the other work LAG Towing owner Leo Glodzik III performed for the city.

From 2005 to 2008, the city paid Glodzik's companies, which include United Sanitation Network Inc. and LAG Wrecking, more than $1.1 million for vehicle purchases and rentals, demolition work and flood cleanup. Operations Director Butch Frati said most of Glodzik's work was "beyond satisfactory," but he recalled several problems.

In October 2006, Glodzik sold the city a cargo van without revealing the state had declared it a salvage, a possible indication of severe damage.

The city paid Glodzik $18,000 for the 2005 Chevrolet Express Work Van, which would have been used by animal control. The van sold new for around $24,500, according to a spokeswoman with Kelley Blue Book, an automobile valuation company.

"I didn't think it was worth the money we had paid for it," Frati said. "So, it took some time, but we ended up getting our money back for the van and we got a different one."

Two months before the city purchased the van, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation issued it a salvage certificate. According to PennDOT, a salvage vehicle is "inoperable or unable to meet the vehicle equipment and inspection standards to the extent that the cost of repairs would exceed the value of the repaired vehicle."

Glodzik refused to say how he acquired the van or why it was labeled a salvage, citing his attorney's advice to not speak with the media. However, The Citizens' Voice obtained a General Motors vehicle inquiry report on the van from January 2007, a month before the city resold it to Glodzik. According to that report, the van was purchased new in April 2005, and the state issued a salvage title on it in August 2006, which voided all warranties.

PennDOT spokeswoman Jan McKnight said the agency's records list one owner for the car between the initial purchase and April 2007, two months after the city resold it to Glodzik. She said it's possible the vehicle changed owners when the salvage title was issued in August 2006.

The van had at least 150,000 miles on it when the city bought it, according to a vehicle history report and Frati's recollection. With that mileage, the Kelley Blue Book value, a standard automotive valuation, was between $11,000 and $14,000.

Frati said he didn't think the city got a "fair shake" on the deal, but he stopped short of saying Glodzik tried to rip off the city.

"I don't think we were given fair treatment on the van," Frati said. "Maybe he purchased it and didn't get what he got for it from someone and tried to pass it off to us."

The botched transaction did not prevent future dealings with Glodzik. The city awarded Glodzik a variety of contracts, according to documents obtained in a Right-to-Know request. Glodzik submitted the lowest bids on some of the projects, and others were awarded on an emergency, non-bid basis.

Now, the city is investigating more than 30 complaints lodged against Glodzik's towing business since January, and the FBI delivered a subpoena in February to the city for police records related to the company. Customers allege he inflated prices and improperly charged them to retrieve their stolen vehicles, which is a violation of his contract. Glodzik refutes the allegations but has admitted he may have mistakenly charged crime victims.

Mayor Tom Leighton said Friday he did not think the 2006 van purchase was a reason to discontinue doing business with Glodzik. He said he does not remember many details about the transaction but would be surprised if Glodzik knowingly tried to sell the city "shoddy equipment."

"We get a lot of stuff that's defective, and we have problems with a lot of vendors," Leighton said. "If there's evidence out there that any vendor, regardless of who it is, (did that), I'd be extremely disappointed. But I do not have all the information to justify making a comment."

Glodzik's relationship with Wilkes-Barre began in April 2005, when he agreed to pay $250,250 in exchange for the exclusive towing rights in the city for five years. Later that year, he was also awarded a $350,000 demolition contract related to the South Main Street revitalization project.

In 2006, Glodzik was one of more than a dozen companies to receive non-bid emergency contracts related to June and November floods. The work from the floods totaled more than $100,000.

While Frati said the work Glodzik did during the floods was "admirable," there were some problems with his demolition of several blighted properties. The city withheld $3,000 from Glodzik for eight months in 2007 until he finished repaving a sidewalk his company damaged on Hill Street. The same year, Glodzik refused to complete a demolition project on South Welles Street, said city spokesman Drew McLaughlin. As a result, the city withheld $1,480 from Glodzik, who never completed the job.

Frati said it is "troubling" when a contractor doesn't finish a project, but the problems were not severe enough to prevent him from making bids on other projects.

"When something like that happens, when a job doesn't get finished, red flags go up," Frati said. "I think you would see after that, he didn't bid on a lot of work. We didn't use him in the last storm (in 2011)."

"There's been less work, if not no work, outside the towing contract for a number of years for whatever that's worth," McLaughlin said. "And I'll leave it up to people to make their own interpretations."

chong@citizensvoice.com 570-821-2052, @CVChrisHong

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